Volume: 2

Breakout

Stuck in Tartarus' tight ass.

Exhaustion turned on my brain filter. I was asleep in minutes, though my dreams were cycling through computer reboots (autopilot), software processing that never ran to completion (shit stuck) and trying to protect the bark of palm trees swaying in the breeze by applying sunscreen on them (no explanation). I wondered, with so many dreams, if I had rested. I must have because after my six hours off I was energized by coffee, the coming daylight and the sound of the explosions still blasting away. While I was asleep, Matthew managed The Heap from midnight until two and Ainslie from two until it was my turn again at four.

Alia slept angelically in the adjacent bed. I wondered what her dreams were like. I dressed for the cold, got coffee and climbed to the second floor. The whiteboard next to the coffeemaker was blank when I went to bed but Alia had completely filled it during her watch with items on The Heap that needed fixing. Many were minor, some were major with most not requiring her immediate attention. Leading the list was the inverter, a box that converted 12 volt DC to 110 volt AC. She said later that she had tried every combination of switches to make it work but stopped short of taking it apart and potentially interrupting what was already working on the 12 volt side. Johnny Montana was in for some sticker shock.

I alternated between the second and third floors, with ninety percent of my attention on my laptop and the remainder on verifying that the instruments and gauges were behaving as expected. Matthew came up to relieve me at six. Relief is a good word. I slept for a couple of hours before nature finally called. I scampered into the tight ass and released days of pent up excrement. The tight ass had an electric pump which I exercised numerous times to avoid clogging. While I won that game, I lost the next. The latch on the sliding door to the tight ass was hopelessly jammed, locking me in. With the tight ass adjacent to our stateroom and next to the engines running at full power, no scream for help could be heard. If anyone needed me for anything and started searching the boat for me they might assume I had fallen overboard and not know when. I examined every utensil in the tight ass that might serve as a tool to free the latch. A razor blade or nail file would have worked but Alia and I kept our personal kits in our stateroom. So, I settled for the method preferred by any good Finn sailor, lowered my shoulder and busted the door down. Crisis over. Add one to the whiteboard.